ShadowProtect vs FD-ISR Rescue

Hi, I'm one of the unfortunate souls who missed out on FD-ISR Wkstn, but I've cried till I can't cry any more so I'm moving on and looking for the next best thing for my needs.
I use Ghost and keep a reasonably up-to-date image but I wanted to be able to test new software, including kinds that require a reboot, then quickly and 100% completely wipe it from PC if I felt like it.
I looked at RBRx but rejected it mainly because I don't want to have remember, or take the time, to uninstall it before creating a Ghost image. Also, it seems there have been dependability issues with previous versions and I'm looking for a mature and very dependable solution.
And after HDS's strange treatment of FD-ISR, their out-of-date knowledge base (most FD-ISR info is still about Wkstn and not Rescue even though it's not noted "Wkstn" or "Rescue") and their hard to use forum, I am leery of going with either FD-ISR Rescue or RBRx.
However, lacking a comparable option so far, and since FD-ISR Rescue apparently still has the core of FD-ISR Wkstn I'm still considering it because it might be a good software, even given HDS's many shortcomings.
I've seen ShadowProtect mentioned and it looks similar. I was hoping for your advice and help deciding. Thanks.

Shadow Protect isnt an ISR and recovery takes about 8 minutes rather than a few.
You would have to decide whether thats acceptable to you as far as software testing is concerned-for me it is,as I wouldnt test more than a few per day and for the straightforward ones which arent likely to leave any problems behind,I just uninstall normally.

It turns out that with the current version 8.1 of Rollback there is a command line which can be used for the problem you mentioned.

"Originally Posted by Empath
You don't have to uninstall Rollback Rx 8.1 in order to defrag or use imaging software. You do have to reset your baseline, which destroys all other images. Then you enter the line command: shieldcmd.exe /defrag

Once the line command is made, Rollback will permit the defrag software to do it's thing, and you don't destroy untitled non-conforming type image files."

So it looks like RB could be the answer if you find the restore of SP too slow.

Pepperer, I think you should try FDISR Rescue. It does have the main, immediate boot to restore functionality that interests you. You seem a little worried about long-term support from HDS. I don't know what other people think; but I've personally never called Raxco for support. I've had a few problems with incompatibilities here and there, but nothing I couldn't manage. For example, I wouldn't have figured out for myself to disable Comodo Firewall's registry self-protect option, but I did know right away to uninstall Comodo and try something else. So that worked out fine even though I didn't see the support explanation at Raxco until a month or two later. Overall, I think that if you have a full disk image on a second or external disk, you'll have nothing to worry about. What do other people think?

pepperer - from what you have said I would have thought that FD-ISR Rescue
would suit. I'm assuming that FD-ISR lets you have a primary and secondary snapshot ? so you install to the secondary, play and then copy the primary over the secondary to get back to the start.

The imaging and defrag issues with RBRx would put me off. If Ghost works why waste money on ShadowProtect ?

Personally I am happy to use Acronis to make an image, to install any new program, to test and to then restore. I could use the Original FD-ISR but find old habits hard to break and still prefer to keep things simple with full images. I don't think the time differences are all that significant - just personal choice really.

You have to test two things regarding reboot-softwares
1. Can you keep the reboot-software in FDISR Rescue, if you like it.
2. Can you remove the reboot-software in FDISR Rescue, if you don't like it.

Removing softwares without a trace is one of the big benefits of ISR-softwares.
The perfect uninstaller for new unwanted softwares.

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Thanks. Yes, this is the main functionality I am looking for.

Hairy Coo said:

Shadow Protect isnt an ISR and recovery takes about 8 minutes rather than a few.

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Does SP require booting to DOS as my version of Ghost does? How would you compare its speed to Ghost's? (In case you've never used the DOS version of Ghost, including the reboot to DOS and the reboot back to Windows, saving a 13GB image to a USB HD takes about 30-40 minutes, but getting it to recognize my external USB drive can be difficult depending on the direction of the wind outside. Overall it isn't an unattended process)

Hairy Coo said:

It turns out that with the current version 8.1 of Rollback there is a command line which can be used for the problem you mentioned.

"Originally Posted by Empath
You don't have to uninstall Rollback Rx 8.1 in order to defrag or use imaging software. You do have to reset your baseline, which destroys all other images. Then you enter the line command: shieldcmd.exe /defrag

Click to expand...

I didn't know about this and it is much better than having to uninstall it, but still having to reset the baseline and losing the incremental restore point images when making a Ghost image is probably a deal breaker at this point for me.

GarySugar said:

...disable Comodo Firewall's registry self-protect option...

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I'm glad I read about this here because I use Comodo's FW v2.x. Does it not bother you too much to lose this self-protection of Comodo's?

Long View said:

The imaging and defrag issues with RBRx would put me off.

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Me too.

Long View said:

If Ghost works why waste money on ShadowProtect ?

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I was looking to see if it was much faster/easier than Ghost.

Long View said:

Personally I am happy to use Acronis to make an image, to install any new program, to test and to then restore.

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Do you know how ATI's speed compares the the DOS version of Ghost's speed from beginning to end of process?

Long View said:

I could use the Original FD-ISR but find old habits hard to break and still prefer to keep things simple with full images. I don't think the time differences are all that significant - just personal choice really.

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Me too, but if ISR is dependable then I'd love to cut restore times to just a few minutes and still rely on Ghost images for my backups.
Thanks again everybody. I appreciate your help.

For quite a while, before the archives were introduced, I used FDISR, exactly as FDISR-Rescue is now, and loved it. Save me many times, and yes still is quicker then an image restore(well depends on how big c: is)

As for HDS support, when I've played with Rollback, and contacted them, the response has been fine.

Do you know how ATI's speed compares the the DOS version of Ghost's speed from beginning to end of process?

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Sorry no idea how fast Acronis is compared to Ghost. There are so many variables to consider - CPU - drives - size of image - partition v whole drive.

As I write I'm restoring C: on a laptop for my wife - total time just under 5 minutes. Yet I have read of others taking 10 or 20 minutes to restore - I think imaging is more of a black art than anything else.

Pepperer, I haven't tried ShadowProtect. Acronis TI is much faster than Ghost 2002 or 2003; but the speed also depends on the connection. With any program, imaging to a second internal drive is faster than imaging to a USB drive. I backup 23 GB from c: to a USB drive with Acronis in 15 minutes, but Ghost 2003 takes more than twice as long. I don't have a second internal drive in my laptop, but I'm guessing that's you need to get 8 minute backups.

About firewalls, I'll just tell my story fwiw. I was using ZoneAlarm Pro when I installed FDISR. That worked fine. Then I tried Comodo and immediately noticed problems with FDISR, so I uninstalled Comodo and reinstalled ZoneAlarm. Then I read the topic about Comodo at Raxco, but I wasn't really interested in Comodo anymore. Since then, I've tried Sunbelt Kerio successfully, and more recently Online Armor (free version), which I'm still using without problems.

The speed of Shadow Protect will of course depend partially on Image size and computer speed.
As regards image size mine is about 18gb.

SP is the fastest backup app I have tested by a big margin-much faster than True Image or Ghost.
I have a schedule for a full backup weekly which takes 8 minutes-then for daily incremental backups at one hour intervals which take about 20seconds-yes 20 SECONDS.
A restore takes about 7 minutes and DOS is absolutely unheard of.

The speed of Shadow Protect will of course depend partially on Image size and computer speed.
As regards image size mine is about 18gb.

SP is the fastest backup app I have tested by a big margin-much faster than True Image or Ghost.
I have a schedule for a full backup weekly which takes 8 minutes-then for daily incremental backups at one hour intervals which take about 20seconds-yes 20 SECONDS.
A restore takes about 7 minutes and DOS is absolutely unheard of.

As mentioned I am using it instead of an ISR-yes its slower but I dont test that much software etc-but its a complete straightforward imaging solution.

I have a fast computer as regards the times,but no matter what,your times will be substantially better than with Ghost or ATI

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Times to do restore/backup in your situation is not out of the ordinary with SP,sure it is as compared with the others,i backup/restore 14 gig. in one run in 7.05 min.I admit the boot of the recovery is bit clumsy,it takes 1.30 min. to get there.But overall its a very fast, and did i say very reliable,never failed one bit on me.

7 min to do a backup/restore with 14 gig. looks amazing but in all honesty its done on a very highend rig[raptors and fast duocores]

I have a fast computer as regards the times,but no matter what,your times will be substantially better than with Ghost or ATI

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Hairy - I think a little care is needed here. substantially better ? without knowing the system - is that not a little dangerous ?

For a bit of fun I have just now made an image of C: which is 10.1 gb ignoring swapfile etc. Time to backup 4 min 40sec. So for 18 gb I would calculate a time of 8 min 20 seconds.

Not what I would call a substantial difference. I like Acronis but accept that Paragon ( which didn't work for me) and Shadow Protect and several others are all contenders and that results can and do vary.

Not sure what the weather is like in the Northern Beaches at this time of year- but would hate to think that you were coming down with a case of fdisritis o

Hairy - I think a little care is needed here. substantially better ? without knowing the system - is that not a little dangerous ?

For a bit of fun I have just now made an image of C: which is 10.1 gb ignoring swapfile etc. Time to backup 4 min 40sec. So for 18 gb I would calculate a time of 8 min 20 seconds.

Not what I would call a substantial difference. I like Acronis but accept that Paragon ( which didn't work for me) and Shadow Protect and several others are all contenders and that results can and do vary.

Not sure what the weather is like in the Northern Beaches at this time of year- but would hate to think that you were coming down with a case of fdisritis o

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Longview-

I ran ATI on the same current system,therefore I am using exactly the same the criteria.

At best ATI was about twice as slow,at worst much slower,from memory Paragon was even slower.

My imaging takes about 8 minutes so your calculations are spot on.

As you can see I'm using a duo core CPU (with 2gb of RAM),but Huupi's times seem also in keeping.

Yes you are right about that FDISR sickness which seems to be sweeping the world like the flu-must take precautions Life aint too bad down here-off to do a spot of kayaking!

I don't have SP so can't compare but if SP is twice as fast as ATI does that mean my times will fall to 4 mins

The machine I was using was a Core 2 duo 6300 1.86 ghz 2 gb of ram. I use 2 small 150 gb drives one for C: and progs and one for data. My experience with Acronis is that it like to image drives rather than partitions

"bare metal" means a blank drive, right off the shelf and into your machine.

But in reality the way I do my restores, makes them essentially bare metal. I always delete the volume first. Although technically the data is still there, the partition structure is wiped out. I then restore the partition from the image.

I don't have SP so can't compare but if SP is twice as fast as ATI does that mean my times will fall to 4 mins

The machine I was using was a Core 2 duo 6300 1.86 ghz 2 gb of ram. I use 2 small 150 gb drives one for C: and progs and one for data. My experience with Acronis is that it like to image drives rather than partitions

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If you overclock your 6300 you will fly.

Not criticizing TI, used it for years,but for my usage,I now prefer SP

I couldn't resist and anyway I had meant to do this for a long time so I downloaded the SP demo and uninstalled Acronis without incident. did a bit of reg cleaning to hopefully remove any last bits of Acronis and then ran a full image.

Time taken 5 min 19 seconds. I know one test is hardly scientific but with Acronis 10 coming in at 4 minutes 40 seconds I think it is safe to conclude that any comparison of software has to be on the same hardware for meaningful results.
In practice all any of use can do is try them all and go for the one that works best for us. recommendations from others, whilst interesting, should not be overly relied upon.

"bare metal" means a blank drive, right off the shelf and into your machine.

But in reality the way I do my restores, makes them essentially bare metal. I always delete the volume first. Although technically the data is still there, the partition structure is wiped out. I then restore the partition from the image.

Pete

Pete

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Pete,

May have asked you before,but is there an advantage by doing this, for example,wiping out all malware properly?

I couldn't resist and anyway I had meant to do this for a long time so I downloaded the SP demo and uninstalled Acronis without incident. did a bit of reg cleaning to hopefully remove any last bits of Acronis and then ran a full image.

Time taken 5 min 19 seconds. I know one test is hardly scientific but with Acronis 10 coming in at 4 minutes 40 seconds I think it is safe to conclude that any comparison of software has to be on the same hardware for meaningful results.
In practice all any of use can do is try them all and go for the one that works best for us. recommendations from others, whilst interesting, should not be overly relied upon.

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Cant explain your fast speeds with True Image-all I can say is that I found TI variable especially in recovery,where the worst time was just ridiculous,approaching the hour with the Linux recovery disk.

I don't get any choice. restoring to a drive rather than to a partition there is a question "do you want to delete all partition on the destination drive" ? unless you answer yes you can not continue.

with the same sized OS in a partition on the same drive imaging and restoring are measurably slower.

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When I get to the restore destination, I don't check the box. First I right click and then select delete volume. This then shows as an unformatted, unknown volume. I right click again, and select recreate partition from image at begining of the drive.

May have asked you before,but is there an advantage by doing this, for example,wiping out all malware properly?

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Long time ago, I trained myself to do things by habit. Less likely to make a mistake.

WHen I was putting HIR thru the wringer, I'd shrink partitions, and all sorts of other crazy stuff. Finally to restore, and put my machine back together, I wanted to start clean. Hence delete the volume, recreate the parition from the image, restore mbr from image, restore track 0 and disk signature. That way I ensured putting it back the way it was when I imaged. It just became habit.

As to wiping out malware. Interesting, you should ask. Check out this thread. New style of rootkit, in the mbr. Apparently the way to get rid of it is FIXMBR from the recovery console. Another good reason for restoring the mbr from the image.